Outrage over John Biggs move to cut borough’s beacon youth sports service

I’ve not been very successful at updating this blog on a regular basis over the past couple of years. Partly this is due to time, and partly it’s due to the energy to keep it flowing.

During the Lutfur years, the overriding whiff that there was something rotten in the Kingdom of Rahman meant it was much easier to invest that time and effort.

Since then, that same stench of maladministration has dissipated. The Government Commissioners gave their seal of approval and have been gone for many months.

But that’s not to say they were right to do so and that there isn’t anything to see.

This from the Momentum Tower Hamlets Facebook page seems to back up suggestions they’re not exactly representative of the borough’s population

The politics are as nasty, complicated and divisive as ever — exacerbated in part by the growing strength of Momentum and the SWP newspaper sellers over the Tower Hamlets Labour party (not to mention the fall out from Shiria Khatun’s sacking as deputy mayor by John Biggs). More on that in another post, soon.

But rather it’s the Grenfell factor that acts as a spur to blog again. The ‘dull but worthy’ stuff needs doing. Except that the guest post below is by no means dull.

In a borough so historically split – or perceived to be split – on race grounds, there are few better unifiers among us all, but particularly schoolchildren, than sport. Invest in sport and you get so much more than the odd medal or rosette.

Over the past decade, one of the great success stories in inner city Tower Hamlets has been the huge improvement in the borough’s schools – and that’s so much more than exam results. The borough’s attitude to sports, especially as there are relatively few playing spaces, has been great.

In many ways, this has been down to the leadership of a few individuals. Former councillor Abdal Ullah deserves credit for his promotion of football, that’s for sure, but it was the ex-headteacher of Langdon Park School in Poplar, Chris Dunne, who has been the real visionary (he was Ed Miliband’s English teacher and he once taught me a lesson after he rightly challenged me over one of my pieces years ago).

His championing of the borough’s school sports partnership made it one of the best in Britain. But as he spells out below, all this is now at very real risk of being undone.

He blames John Biggs and Labour. Well, more than blame…his anger boiled over to such an extent on Wednesday night, that he was escorted out of the chamber by council officers. (I’m now in good company…).

The mayor and Labour, meanwhile, will no doubt say this is all about austerity and government cuts. Let’s hope they’re not playing politics.

OK, take a breather, sit back and enjoy this really excellent piece by Chris Dunne (pictured below).

By Chris Dunne

Mayor John Biggs and Labour councillors on Wednesday night did to the children of Tower Hamlets what Michael Gove did to the children of the country. Just days before the fifth anniversary of the London Olympics they voted to make the staff of the most successful youth sports partnership in the country redundant and wind up its operations.

Why am I so angry with this? Well, first let me admit it is personal (I Chair the Foundation that supports its work), but also because I passionately believe that when we make promises we should mean what we say. As a country we won the right to stage the Olympics because we said we would use them to establish a lasting legacy for all young people. One year before the London Games the Coalition Government trashed that idea in public when Gove, representing the Coalition Government, dismantled the school sports partnerships that were already making such a huge and effective impact across our country.

On Wednesday night the Mayor of a Borough that is still proudly claiming to be ‘Olympic’ trashed the only partnership left in the country still providing all the opportunities we had promised to the world – and providing them not for well-off children but for some of the poorest and most deserving children in the nation.

What do I know about it? Pretty much everything, having been involved from the start 12 years ago.

I was Headteacher of Langdon Park secondary school from 1992 to 2013. In 2005 we became the first Sports Specialist College in the borough. As such we were designated by the Government to run one of the 500 School Sports Partnerships in the country. It was one of the very few times in my life when I can remember a Government both setting schools some hugely ambitious targets and providing them with the resources to reach them. In essence the SSPs were designed to do the following:

• Increase (to a specific percentage each year) the time spent weekly by children on sport and physical activity • Increase substantially the number of different sports on offer to all children • Each secondary school to release a trained PE teacher for half the week to work in a cluster of local primary schools helping to train primary colleagues to deliver quality PE lessons • Create clear pathways for children to pursue their involvement in sport beyond the school gates and after they leave school, through links to local clubs

I was responsible for making this happen in 45 schools in Tower Hamlets, and the Government sent me the money to do it.

Chris Willetts

I advertised for someone to manage this project and was fortunate to secure the services of a young man called Chris Willetts who, since 2005, has with a highly committed team quite simply transformed the sporting landscape for the youth of our Borough.

A second SSP was established at the Council to do the same thing with the other half of the Borough. It rapidly became obvious to us that it made sense to combine the two SSPs and to let Chris manage both. He and all the staff we subsequently appointed were employed by my school, but on behalf of the Borough in whose schools they all worked.

Between 2005 and 2010 Chris worked tirelessly (at one point I later discovered he was sleeping in his car while he sorted out somewhere to live) to make this one of the most successful SSPs in the country. In 2005 the percentage of children in the Borough getting two hours or more PE / Sport a week was 25%. By the time Gove did his work five years later that figure had increased to 90%, and we had exceeded Government targets every single year.

The number of sports on offer was rapidly increased to 25, where it still stands – though not for much longer. Sports specialists were appointed in a range of sports, both to work in schools skilling up pupils and enthusing them to enjoy their sport, but also to establish after-school borough-wide clubs, identify talented children and link them up with clubs to develop their prowess. The year before Chris started work there were 2 inter-school sports competitions in the borough. Chris and his team set themselves highly ambitious targets and in very little time that number of competitions had increased to 70+ a year, where it stands to this day – though not for much longer.

Currently 12 of our sports have borough squads or academies. Two examples:

• In 2005 there were no judo clubs in Tower Hamlets. Our newly appointed coach Marius, rapidly established three clubs in the borough, still attended by hundreds of youngsters, many of whom compete at a high level. Along the way he spotted a very young boy called Leo in one of the primary schools who he believed had exceptional talent. Leo, now 18, fights up and down the country and abroad and has been identified for Junior Team GB, and Marius is still at his side.

• In Tower Hamlets many youngsters are very keen on cricket, especially among the borough’s large Bangladeshi community. Tower Hamlets has no cricket club. Chris Willetts is a serious cricket player himself and soon after arriving here joined Blackheath Cricket Club in Greenwich. The first youngsters from Tower Hamlets went to Blackheath in Chris’s car, more joined them in other staff cars, and more still could follow when we bought a minibus and appointed Jahid, an ex-Essex County player to lead the sport’s development. Dozens of our youngsters now play at Blackheath as members, some of them have progressed to county level, and one became the first young Bangladeshi to win a contract with the MCC. A couple of days ago we played the fifth of our annual matches against the MCC, where our youngsters, mostly Asian, get to play against (and have lunch and tea with) some very talented adult, and incidentally mostly white, cricketers.

Hope you’ve spotted the most important factor here. Our coaches are not just coaches in their sport – for many of our youngsters they become mentors, surrogate big brothers / sisters, personally involving themselves in overcoming many of the obstacles that our youngsters in particular often face. When one of our young cricketers was told by his family that he could not stay overnight on a tour of the West Country Chris Willetts drove him back to his house in Bow then picked him up the next morning to drive him back to Somerset.

When Gove destroyed the national SSP scheme, in Tower Hamlets we decided that this was too important to lose. Headteachers agreed to pay subscriptions to a new organization (we set up a Foundation that became a company and then a charity), Langdon Park agreed to continue to employ the staff, and the Council agreed to underwrite potential future redundancies, to passport the money they spent on the London Youth Games to the new Foundation and to commission services from it wherever feasible.

For four years of the past five the Foundation operated in surplus, but it was becoming apparent that things needed to change if we were to secure the future. Firstly, Langdon Park (I retired as Head in 2013) quite understandably did not want to employ the staff ‘ad infinitum’. Secondly, schools’ budgets were coming under increasing pressure. Thirdly, the Council had not only commissioned no services from us; they had not even paid us any money for schools to enter the annual London Youth Games. Indeed, a report commissioned by the Council itself showed that by comparison with similar boroughs they spent far less on young people, not least because of our Foundation’s existence. In reality everything that was happening in youth sport in the borough was being managed by us and paid for largely by the schools, together with some corporate sponsorship raised by the Foundation.

Trustees of the Foundation (by then I was the Chair) alerted the newly elected Mayor John Biggs to this in Autumn 2015 and sought his urgent intervention to construct a plan with us to secure this work for future generations of children. Apart from one conversation about taking the staff into the Council’s sports department almost nothing happened for a full year, which I wrote to the Mayor to point out. By the time any real discussions were being had a number of unforeseen factors had led to a small deficit being accumulated for the financial year 2016/17. We made it clear however that not only was this a blip (after four years of operating with a surplus) but one that could be easily remedied if the Council had the political will, and in particular was prepared to share the funding of this work with their schools.

Chris Dunne with his former pupil, Ed Miliband

This blog is not the place for a detailed account of the discussions between us. In essence, in our proposed business plan we asked the Council to transfer the staff from Langdon Park into the Council for an interim period while we examined the feasibility of setting up an independent trust (transferring staff to the Council was their own first suggestion, and would cost them nothing since they already underwrite redundancy costs). The Council declined, insisting instead on the transfer of all the staff (with their existing borough terms and conditions of employment) directly and pretty much immediately to the Trustees of the Charity.

Furthermore, they insisted that we produce a second business plan both to reflect this and to remove everything from our programme that was not school-based. Or to put it more clearly, to remove everything that I have already described in this article, and much more like it.

No more squads and academies. No more competitions. No more talent identification and nurturing. No more mentoring. No more children playing sport at the highest levels possible. No more county. No more national. No more Junior Team GB.

The Council surely can’t have been surprised when the Trustees told the Mayor that they found this an impossible prospect. To take on the costs of employing borough staff on borough terms and conditions would in itself have been very challenging, but to do so knowing that the programme they would be offering would be hugely less attractive both to the schools that would provide the bulk of their income and to the corporate sponsors who provided the rest, made it totally unviable. To this day the one option that was / is totally viable remains on the table, unopened. It’s really very simple:

• The Council transfers these ‘borough’ workers from Langdon Park to its own direct control – funded by school subscriptions or made redundant (at no extra cost) if the schools do not buy the service

• The Council redresses the imbalance in spending of its existing budget for sport – an imbalance pointed out in a report it itself commissioned – to focus more resources on the very high youth population in the borough, thus reducing the costs to schools, who currently face enormous pressures on their budgets

In Tower Hamlets for the last five years schools and the Foundation have been doing everything in their power to keep the best sports partnership in the country alive in this seriously deprived ‘Olympic’ borough. In addition to everything I have already described, since we started our work over 200 teachers every year are trained by our staff to deliver high quality PE to their pupils An award-winning scheme has seen 2,500 teenagers, boys and girls of every race and religion, trained to lead and coach sport for younger children across the borough. Three youngsters have made it into Junior Team GB. Since we took over the running of our entry to the London Youth Games we have improved our position from 25th (out of 33 boroughs) to 9th. This year Tower Hamlets won “most improved borough” status at the London Youth Games.

Despite all of the above the Council made the decision to close the programme down and make the staff redundant. In typical cavalier fashion it was announced in an internal bulletin for Headteachers before any of the staff concerned had been officially informed. In fact, at the time of writing this article some of the staff concerned have still to be notified officially!

In just 10 days more than 6,000 children, parents, teachers, club officials and residents had signed a petition, and many dozens of them from every part of the borough had attended a rally at the Town Hall before the Council Meeting at which the petition would be debated. Hundreds of residents, young and old, have left messages of support on the on-line petition, pleading with the Council not to allow this service to go under. Their comments, some of which are reproduced below, make heart-warming reading.

A Bengali Muslim PE teacher is rare and I’ve only managed that because of THYSF. I get to be a role model for so many young girls out there and make a positive impact to our community.

The Youth Sport Foundation was founded in Tower Hamlets to get young kids into the world of sports. It has positively impacted many kids within the borough to pursue their interest in sports and reach their goals through the help of many talented and highly experienced coaches. The Youth Sport Foundation has now become the target of the brutal and extensive budget cuts within the borough of Tower Hamlets and I am pleading with the many out there who feel as passionately as I do about the programme. Please take a few minutes to sign the petition I have provided so that we can keep this great cause alive. The Youth Sport Foundation has also helped me to pave my career as a teacher and I would not be where I am today without the support and guidance of the programme.

This organisation has been doing an incredible job in a very troubled and impoverished borough. It has set me on to bigger and better things in life, I am currently in the NHS as a therapist but without Tower Hamlets Youth Sports, I wouldn’t be here.

This program is amazing, It played major part in mine and many others individuals developments and integration to UK.

I’m signing this because the company helps a lot of people get off the streets, also it has personally helped me massively THYSF is a fantastic organisation and I would never have been able to play at the high level of hockey which I do without being introduced into the sport by them.

The Chair of the Youth Sport Trust, and the woman who oversaw the funding of Team GB, Baroness Campbell, had written to the Mayor to express her worry and disappointment at the decision.

All the Council were being asked to do differently, since the staff of the Foundation are already borough employees, was to help schools with the cost of running these programmes, by redirecting some of the £3.8m in their sports budget to this hugely successful enterprise. The Council’s own report has already shown that they spend far less on children’s sport because of the Foundation’s existence.

Seb (Lord) Coe wrote recently about the enormous damage done to youth sport in England in 2011 by “meddling and ill-informed government ministers” when they dismantled the highly successful school sports partnerships that were already making such a difference to young people’s lives. At Wednesday night’s council meeting Labour councillors, either because they don’t care or because they had been given false or inaccurate information by their Mayor, voted down a motion to protect the Tower Hamlets Youth Sport Foundation and secure a sporting future for our children, and voted instead for an unpublished “plan” proposed by the Mayor that he must know is simply undeliverable.

The Mayor, protected by Standing Orders that clearly very few councillors understood, and that both denied them the right to ask me questions and me to have any right of reply, made a string of assertions that were either gross distortions of the facts or simply untrue.

The Mayor has apparently told his supporters that his plan will “support youth sport, including the provision of inter-borough, School Games and London Youth Games and support local clubs and elite sport”. Since he hasn’t bothered to seek the advice of the staff who have been delivering this service, including Chris Willetts, the man who has led this transformation for over 12 years, I have to assume that this “plan”, if it even exists, is just another example of the politician’s art, of saying a lot while intending to deliver little or nothing.

Those of us who have been involved with this Borough for many years know precisely what the sporting future now holds for our children and their families, as we rapidly return to the days when fewer and fewer sports are on offer, most of them without a borough squad or academy, when only a few children have the resources and connections to find their way to specialist clubs, almost all of them outside this borough, or to compete at the highest levels, leaving all that to children from more comfortably off families in more affluent parts of the country. All the while being forced to listen to ignorant and sickening drivel from privately educated politicians, bemoaning the fact that so many members of Team GB have come from independent or private schools.

Before security officers showed me to the door of the Council Chamber, and despite the best attempts of the Speaker to drown me out by banging her gavel, I managed to tell the Mayor and his supporters on the Labour benches (I’m a Labour Party member incidentally) that thousands of children and their families would never forgive them and that they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. So they should, and I intend to go on calling out this Mayor in public, to expose the lies and deceptions and downright incompetence that underlies this decision.

Let’s hope the Mayor will have the guts to face me in public rather than hiding behind the totally undemocratic ‘regulations’ that allowed him to rubbish our work and distort the facts, and not give me any right of reply. I’m not holding my breath.

95 Responses

What a sorry state of affairs. At face value it sounds like an enviable system is in place and, finances aside, it seems mad to tear it apart. I’m sure THING will say keep it without a thought about the practicalities and just make political capital out of the situation, but I’d like to hear what Cllr Golds and the Tories have to say as I get the feeling they won’t just say something to knock Biggs.

From what I have seen of the existing council culture – where many staff seem to adopt a “can’t do” attitude, excel in creating obstacles and being jobsworths (I’m not just talking Lemonade) – I think it would be madness to put our youngsters sporting futures in the council’s hands.

Peter had a meeting with Chris I believe but I had to pull out so I need to do some more work on this myself although the article above is very useful. Needless to say Councillors like myself do not get any briefing or heads up on issues like this from within the Council unless we chase for it.

But not in any expectation that will change everything. The Council has generally ploughed on regardless in the past, for example the Council has done a very effective job of limiting the damage from the failure of its Children’s Services at the expense of not learning all of the lessons it could have done. There is a risk of the same happening with the lessons on fire safety. An Executive Mayor model means only the Mayor is accountable and then only to the electorate.

What I have learnt is;

1. The Council is generally better off out sourcing the running of a number of its services to people who are passionate about the service they provide. When we employ our own staff we tend to get sub-standard outcomes i.e. Youth Service.
2. Its youth budget is generally higher than many other Boroughs but has low outcomes
3. The Mayoral system does not work unless the Mayor can delegate to a number of highly competent people who can make decisions themselves. There is simply too much happening in TH for one person to stay on top of what is happening and to then follow up to ensure action is delivered. But the Mayor does not have enough competent people to be able to delegate to and some of the most competent Labour Cllrs are not in the Cabinet.
4. The Councils government grant has been cut but less than in many comparable boroughs and is also benefitting from increases in Council tax (both rate increases and from new homes) and Business rates so we are not as badly off as other areas. They are still spending money on what I consider to be luxury items or those of lesser importance then the youth sports programme. We now operate a 3 year outcomes based budget process but I believe we should have started with a bottom up budget looking at everything we do from first principles and asking if we still need this in 2017.
5. The structure of the Council is not conducive to dealing with issues like this as to silo-ised. Only Will Tuckley and John Biggs have a remit that covers the whole of Tower Hamlets but they are both very busy people.

Lutfur failed in this role and now we are watching John fail – the role is problematic and such a big role.

John hasnt helped himself as Andrew says he hasnt chosen the most competent people to be in his cabinet – the truth is there are not many to choose from – the problem starts when he selects the councillor candidates all these ‘desperate councillors’ are not the best choice – the party should be looking for the right people and encouraging them to come forward and serve but the reality is that it is often the person who gets the most selfies or does the most flattering and running around who gets chosen, OR the person who will do what they are told! Looking at the current crop of wannabe councillors the same thing will happen again.

Ironically 2 of the best councillors Candida and Dave Chesterton were reluctant councillors at first and had to be persuaded to stand – they are brilliant and should show the way forward – especially since we have so many talented people in the borough yet who represents us? Too often the people seem to be attracted into politics for the glamour or the opportunity of a political career.

I would go further and ask why seeing the shambles John Biggs hasnt reached out to create a cabinet of unity and invited people like Andrew and Peter and Rabina to work with him?

Tony Blair abolished the former committee system – a system renown for cross party involvement and the ability to co-opt whoever they liked.

Labour’s local candidates get selected at branch meetings. Some in some places pack the meetings with their families, relatives and friends to exclude the better and more competent person being selected as the election candidate. The Labour Party doesn’t mind because everyone “packing” the meeting has to be a paid-up member (never mind who actually pays their membership fee).

So crap gets selected as the candidate; crap gets elected by the public and the same crap is responsible for the poor functioning of local government. Your British democracy is truly wonderful.

As the newly elected Chair of the Grants Scrutiny Sub-Committee one of things we are now going to scrutinise this year is the grants process as its relates to youth in general and sports provision in particular to see what we are doing now and what can be improved. We will then write a report with some recommendations. That is not a quick solution although we will try and do the work this year but it may be useful.

Separately on the Isle of Dogs we are writing a Neighbourhood Plan which will help deliver additional sports facilities and perhaps one day through our own Town/Parish Council for the IoD have some more joined up local government that can co-ordinate the use of sports facilities.

John Biggs has done an excellent job so far. Cuts have got to come from somewhere and running around should be the first place the axe falls. Rubbish collections are at the minimum, I wouldn’t want to see further cuts to old people or housing or other crucial frontline services. Our last nightmayor gave cash out to any “faith building” (aka “chums”) he saw fit and reduced this borough to a laughing stock. Anything is preferable to Lutfur or his associates getting their paws in the till again. Anything. Keep up the good work John.

There’s plenty of money to be saved from housing. The Council could scrap its expensive and poorly performing housing organisation, Tower Hamlets Homes that’s paid around £30m as a “management” fee. Biggs pledged to scrap it in his election manifesto but didn’t after he got elected. He’s kicked it into the long grass by his dithering and has let residents down.

Tower Hamlets Labour Party has the mayor which it deseves. Better than Lutfur? Yes, marginally. Worthy of the area? Certainly not.

Tower Hamlets needs to brace itself. As predicted by Cllr. Peter Golds, a year ago, Lutfur can march back into the town hall next May, using exactly the same tachniques used in 2014. The only difference is that he will act as a “political adviser” to his puppet mayoral candidate.

The police, the Electoral Commission, the CPS and Tower Hamlets Labour Party are all responsible for this. Apart from a few members, the local Labour leadership did lol in its power to prevent the Election Petition reach court.

So Labour is to the right of the Conservitives in Tower Hamlets. Jeremy Corbyn will have to do something before the scandal of corruption in the borough dents his principled campaign for change in Britain. The international corruption case opened in Paris last week will expose everything.

The commissioners backed off just because there was a change of Mayor, not because anything had improved. The Council is now blaming cuts and having to implement the Commissioners recommendations. The Council has plenty of money and has choices about how it spends it. One of Biggs’ first acts was to give all Councillors an above inflation pay rise while cutting services to residents while hiking Council Tax by almost 5% in each of the last 2 years.Had Biggs spent residents’ money more wisely there would be more to go round to worthwhile project such as this one.

For information, I’ve been a member of the Labour Party most of my life. Which just makes what John Biggs did this week so despicable. Every Labour Councillor fully supported him. He can be heard on the webcast boasting that he had “20 seconders” for the motion he put forward. When the vote was won, effectively confirming the redundancy of some of the most committed and hard-working people I’ve had the pleasure to work with, they applauded him!

Call it a gut instinct but he appeared like a useless, uncaring Labour plodder who would be unable or unwilling to be dynamic and decisive; instead he would ask his Labour Party controllers what to do.

Certainly not a genuine people’s champion.

Yes Biggs would be better choice for Mayor than Lutfur Rahman but still not good enough to make Tower Hamlets proud.

Suspect this is merely the beginning of many pangs of deep regret trusting Biggs.

That is the real reality of Labour. Too afraid to be the people’s 100% champion. I’m not suggesting the Tories are better. Its a manifestation of corrupt and often uncaring British politics whose elected members, national and local, are poodles to their parties and never ever full-time champions for the public that elected them.

Give then a chance. Stimulate and inspire them. Healthy people are better and more productive than obese health-resources-consuming ones.

Kids, we were one once (then I hated the term “kids”) have only one childhood, one teenage growing-up period, so what is wrong in encouraging them to be physically active and the interested ones to compete to their best of their abilities.

Hang your head in shame, muddled Mr Biggs. Tower Hamlets deserves a lot better. Better still, reign and let a better mayor take over and achieve what you have failed to do.

There is no one better in Tower Hamlets Labour. Biggs blames central government for everything. It is not their fault that he is paying a head of communications up to £100K and increasing the rubbish by publishing Our East end and running mother tongue classes when we need English classes.

That is the problem – no one better and the best they’ve got is weak and unable. God help the public because Labour won’t – they live on a different planet.

Elected Labourites top priority is always themselves – will they be re-selected as the Labour candidate when their incumbency expires ? To ensure their own re-selection, they will do whatever others want, whilst blatantly ignoring the public they were elected to serve.

Tower Hamlets needs a champion who loves the public of Tower Hamlets, who is wise, strong, innovative, resourceful and who is never afraid to speak-out loud and clear.

No one in Labour can do it. Ditto Tories. Lib Dims, No. Please can I apply ?

The Mayoral system has been, and continues to be a disaster in Tower Hamlets. Even with Lutfur gone (for the time being) his stench lives on. Having a Mayor creates another level of expensive bureaucracy we could do without and which would release much needed money for public services if it didn’t exist.

THYSF by the looks of it has been able to use staff employed by Langdon. They now can’t. Details on that would be interesting. Did Langdon lose some funding? Who receives the central funding available (e.g. for School Games)? What cut has been made that caused this problem, and was it anything to do with Biggs?

More information on why this has happened would be really appreciated before I can jump to the LBTH are swines for not bailing out THYSF line. I’m happy enough to agree with Chris but there’s not quite enough facts available.

If you can’t borrow staff anymore, they transfer to you. I suspect TUPE is why the employment terms would have to stay the same (rather than Biggs somehow forcing those terms on THYSF).

If you can’t afford to do what you were doing…then that is a crushing shame, but where is there anything that obliges the Council to bail out THYSF? Can’t the Council say it is going to do it itself?

I’m not sure “it was crap when you ran it” is a sufficient argument to run if you need a bail out. Nor is some of the misinformation going around (e.g. there’s a £3.8M sports budget and nothing is spent on kids? Isn’t some of that going on sports facilities for everyone, including kids?)

Don’t get me wrong, there’s an awful lot of good stuff THYSF has done (obviously) but there’s also perhaps a few round the borough (and outside it) bruised by their interactions with them.

My question to anyone involved in this is how do we ensure adequate youth sports provision – and I suspect there are a few answers to this that aren’t “Save THYSF”. That doesn’t mean THYSF isn’t the right answer – but in constrained times when all funding is being cut, shouldn’t we look at everything?

Finally, to the Councillor’s comment above – yes, working with community partners is definitely a good idea (and in that context it’s maybe worth looking at which sports clubs are and aren’t currently working with LBTH / THYSF and why – especially as that may be a source of volunteer coaches) but that doesn’t mean outsourcing is the be all and end all. In other contexts, outsourcing is what causes NHS nurses to have parking fines.

This is all a desperately difficult situation, and hopefully these comments can be taken as a “critical friend” rather than causing offence. No one can doubt the passion which the two Chrises bring to this topic or be without sympathy.

PS I agree v much with the councillor quality point – let’s face it, you need the hide of a rhino to want to take that job on, and I can’t help but think we would get rather more done in our borough if we weren’t shouting at each other so regularly.

Take your point about keeping it civilised. So – you ask for more details on how the funding situation came about, but with respect from about paragraph 8 of my article I deal with this in great detail.

We don’t need a bailout. We need the Council to help out the schools who have been paying for everything for 5 years and can’t go on doing it all. The Council says “cuts mean we can’t” but we say

(1) you’ve got a sports budget of £3.8m (after the cuts)
(2) you (the Council) commissioned a report which said that you are not spending as much money on young people as other similar boroughs because the THYSF (the schools) are doing it for you.

Every other London Borough pays for their Youth Games work. Here the Council doesn’t even do that.

It’s simply a matter of priorities – do we or don’t we want the neediest children to have these opportunities or not? If we do, re-allocate the £3.8m budget. If not, have the courage to say so.

The Mayor says he’s got a plan. Why hasn’t anyone seen it? Why hasn’t it involved the people who’ve been doing the job for (in Chris Willetts’ case) 12 years? Be honest – it doesn’t sound very likely does it?

Thanks for the reply Chris (and I’m glad I haven’t p–d you off too much, or at least you’re hiding it ok so far). I did read your article very carefully, and I just re-read it, but I don’t see the answer to what I’m asking. What I am saying I haven’t seen is why Langdon can’t continue employing the staff.

If I understand you correctly, they employed the staff since the SSP (and I agree with, and share your views on Gove). But now you say they can’t go on. Why?

What has changed? I agree your article is very detailed, but I don’t see where it covers that. Isn’t that the key to everything else here? Why can’t the schools carry on funding it? I get you are saying they can’t go on doing it, but why is that, has something changed? Isn’t there a budget cut or something in the schools that causes this to come to a head?

Whether we call it a bail out or find that term offensive, isn’t there a trigger for why we are where we are before the question of what the Council will or won’t do comes into play? I mean, that seems obvious, if the Council aren’t funding you, they can’t cut your funding, right? So it’s more that you now need them to fund you…so why is that?

E.g. what has happened to the School Games funding? Is that still coming your way, or has something happened to that? I thought some of this was paid for through that route?

That’s why I ask the question, because I guess on face value, that is what seems to have caused this whole problem rather than Biggs cutting something (per the headline)?

Then there’s the subsequent point of whether having got to that stage the Council must step in. I see your point, and it is worth looking at what the sport budget is going on.

That said, and being fair to them, I have noticed what seems to be increased investment into facilities, e.g. Stepney Green got redone with the help of the FA, and Poplar Baths, and I’m sure there’s others. These things are good for everyone, including the kids. Certainly seems better to me than what has sometimes happened with e.g. putting facilities into schools that are then not available at all for non-school use, or very restricted or over priced, or don’t meet the appropriate standards for non-school use because pitches are the wrong size, or whatever.

Facility developments aren’t part of council sports budget. GLL contract is separate and most funding is external. Football facility dev drivin by local community. Same as mayors cup but tower hamlet sport dev take crdit.
Show me where Council has spent anything on kids sport in last 5 year.
Local sports clubs which serve BME community can hardly get booking in leisure centre. Sports development terribley run.
We had football officer who never did anything for football in the borough. Nothing. Just forward email and send out flier. No one sees Lisa potinger ever never at community event.
No wonder no Bengali sports people with no support from council.

Thysf is very good. Everyone in sport community knows them and we all know kids involved with project. Some sport like badminton and cricket, there are no opportunity for kids to play apart from what thysf provide. Council has never looked at gaps and tried to do something.
BME community cannot get access to facilities because council has no policy to allocate space and no control over gll. Sports development and gll just act like kings and give bookings to friends. If you question them, you never get space. Means use if pitches is not representative.
Rich organisations just block book some facilities. Banks, corporate league. Not many local resident.

I would rather not get distracted from my main question about THYSF, namely why are we in the situation we are (and what has happened to schools funding).

However this does appear to be a question stimulated by my last post.

Are you absolutely certain facility developments aren’t part of the council sports budget? I’d politely suggest that is not correct. My recall was that all of the facility improvements in the borough have been project managed by LBTH staff, and have either been funded by the Council, or by money obtained by the Council (e.g. FA funding, s106 money, etc.).

The GLL contracts (which are paid for by the Council – remember “giving up the right to charge users to GLL” is still funding of a kind, as the Council is the landlord) have very little to do with investing in sports centres (whether opening more or improving the ones we have), they are a contract to operate them.

As you to your second point about sports clubs not being able to get a booking in the leisure centre…less supply than demand suggests we need more facilities not less, and that you prioritise that as a priority for spending the £3.8M (rather than say, funding THYSF). We can’t have everything, if you allocate funding to one thing, you take it away from something else.

I hope you’re not saying there are enough facilities (there really aren’t) or that it is a fix to kick one set of users out in favour of another.

Likewise with community events – Lisa has strengths and weaknesses, but I know there are a few people in this borough who are very smooth at going to community events but do very little actual work. I don’t see this kind of politicking to be the main job of a council officer (as opposed to a councillor). But then that’s a personal view.

No time for a long reply now. I’m busy planning a PUBLIC MEETING on this subject to be held next Sunday JULY 30TH 6 – 7.30 at ST HILDA’S CENTRE E2 7EY.

Everyone welcome (including the Mayor).

Everyone able to say their piece.
Anyone entitled to ask questions.
No-one denied the right of reply.

A total contrast to last week’s undemocratic shambles.

On the question of facilities – please let’s not go there. I have already spent what seems like a good bit of my life trying to persuade politicians and journalists that it’s not facilities that make the difference, it’s coaches. For which in our case read also ‘mentor’, ‘big brother/sister’.

There never was / isn’t now a cricket pitch in Tower Hamlets. So, as well as starting a District Squad, Chris also started ferrying our kids (mainly Bangladeshi) over to Blackheath Cricket Club (mainly white then). Then other cars, then a minibus. And he recruited Jahid Ahmed, ex Essex County player, to be our Cricket Development Officer. Now huge numbers of our kids play / have played at Blackheath, many have played at county level and one has secured an MCC contract. That’s why the MCC play a match against our team every year. That’s why the BBC came to film it last week as part of their upcoming programme on the Olympic Legacy (or lack of it?).

That’s why we put most of our resources into coaches – in 16 different sports, 12 of them with squads / academies like the cricket one.

Before the Olympics we won the BBC’s national competition to twin with a major athlete’s old school. As a result staff and students from USAIN BOLT’S old school in Jamaica listed us and we got to meet Usain at his training ground when he recorded a message of support for the Foundation:

It has weeds growing in the track. It is nowhere near as impressive as Mile End Stadium. The point is, he has some of the best coaches in the world. They could do their work anywhere.

As a borough, we need to open our eyes and learn the lesson. You can have all the facilities you want, but if you don’t have a way of personally meeting, and enthusing, and encouraging, and organising the 30,000+ youngsters who might use them they often remain woefully underused.

Because we work in most of the borough’s schools we are able to do just that. Once we are gone the numbers of children participating in sport at every level will retreat to pre- 2005 levels (when there were 2 borough competitions, not the 75 we have now).

On the question of money, my argument is simple. Schools should / do / would pay for school-based sport and physical activity. The Council should / don’t / won’t pay for non school-based sport (weekends, holidays, Youth Games etc).

I think they should. The Mayor doesn’t seem to agree.

He accuses me of being passionate about ‘elite’ sports. I think he needs to check the dictionary. Unlike similar boroughs, unlike most of our country, we have enormous numbers of children involved at high levels of a range of sports. It’s when the Council has done its work and made our coaches redundant that sport in Tower Hamlets will once again be the preserve of the (largely middle class) elite.

Actually, I’m not passionate about the sport at all. I’m passionate about the borough’s children, and giving them the same opportunities as children from more privileged backgrounds. There was a time when I felt that view was widely shared in the Council. Sadly no more.

I don’t work for the Council CC, so I don’t know how realistic your suggestion is that all that is published. I suspect it isn’t that realistic unless you are in an environment like a professional services firm where people are time recording. It is simply part of the function of the much maligned sports team.

All I can comment on is what I’ve seen, which is LBTH employees running projects where borough facilities have been improved. From that, I know that (1) some of the staff costs of the sports development team are therefore covering the project management of that; (2) some of those staff costs are also covering the time cost of applying for FA grants, Sport England funding, liaising with councillors to get s106 funding for sport as opposed to anything else; and (3) then the Council is on occasion putting in money from its own budget to sit alongside that external money in funding these projects.

We are desperately quick in this borough to chuck rocks, examining whether our target is appropriate is less common.

For the same reason, you won’t find me shouting about “cute little 5 year old girl didn’t receive fine for selling lemonade, but dad who was fined knows how to get media attention”. 5 year olds cannot get fined, so that headline caused me to immediately raise an eyebrow. But lots of people are already trying to points score on it.

In the present case, I’m asking for a little more information about why we are where we are before I form a view.

I even watched the footage from the council meeting (and as a result I have a LOT of sympathy for Chris Dunne).

If our opposition councillors could ask coherent questions rather than rambling attempts to point score, we might be in a better position. The only one who seemed to know what the rules of that meeting should have been was Cllr Golds (and no, that’s not a political affiliation showing).

I expect Chris will say the coaches are what matters – and I agree…to an extent. But I have seen with the Olympic Park that facilities can inspire, and that can in turn lead to people being willing to take up coaching as well as kids taking up sport.

Adequate facilities might then lead to the different clubs being able to work with each other on projects rather than as Stepney Shaz implies, feeling frustrated with each other about lack of access or whatever.

Fundraising officer does not cost £3.8m. Council has lots of officers outside of sport dealing with section 106.
Council pays gll millions separately. Shares of profits fund improvement.
And yes. More demand for football pitch than supply but where can you build? You say fund instead of thysf but thysf take kids to facility out of TH or get access to school site or use estate pitch.
You say £3.8m on administrator is good but is not good when zero for frontline. Many kids in TH do nothing, bad health, gangs etc. Football clubs do good work with kids but which other club?

– as for lemonadegate – I wasn’t there. So I don’t know whether a THEO was being over-zealous or whether the business school professor dad talked himself into a fine. I may form suspicions one way (officious bureaucrat is an easy story to sell) or the other (business school professor who has previously stripped on the tube to promote his work, who has just published something on organisational stupidity, has story about organisational stupidity).

What I do know for a fact though is a little girl was not fined and therefore the headline was wrong.

That’s what gets my goat everytime, and that’s why I keep asking here, what has caused this cut. It looks like it is a cut in school’s budgets…and then Biggs & co didn’t bail out (or whatever term you prefer). What has caused the problem with the schools? Would that remain a problem in a brave new world (as the schools consume the THYSF services). I don’t really think of LYG or weekend sport as being “not schools” and for the Council as Chris put it. LYG is effectively the London version of the School Games. Some schools play sports on a weekend.

And of course I find the status quo unsatisfactory, as I have for years, hence my nom de plume. I mean, why on these comments we already have turned this into a race and class issue rather than thinking how best to harness borough resources so that there is enough sporting opportunity for everyone (e.g. the “middle class” bit, like Canary Wharf, being a very useful source of business rates to fund Council activity; and also a potential source of both corporate and private funding to fund outreach for our deprived children).

That’s the sort of cooperation I would hope to see if we stopped chucking rocks (NB I do not mean Chris with this as he has every right to be incandescent with rage).

Finally…I’m flattered you think I have any ability to influence whether the Mayor attends a meeting or not.

PS further to my last – I might even go further out on a limb here and say that all borough residents (including the middle class and/or white ones) have as much right to access borough sport as anyone else…and if we work with them…we might be able to turn some of them into coaches, and also get some money off them to make it affordable for everyone else (I’ve seen this work elsewhere).

That doesn’t mean I don’t see the value in the more targeted work THYSF does, or in investing in services for deprived children. I think you can believe in both.

Sorry if i gave you the impression that our ‘targeting’ means that we end up being in any way exclusive. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary our ambition is always to work with every single child in the borough that we can – and by working in the vast majority of schools (primary, secondary, free schools, academies and special schools) that’s exactly what we do.

Every bit of our programme is available to young people regardless of their gender, class, race, religion or sexual orientation, as membership of our borough squads in 12 different sports clearly demonstrates.

Do we however try particularly hard to get particular groups of youngsters to take up some of the offer. You bet.

The whole point of strategic targeting is that you try even harder to find ways of encouraging groups of children who across the country have often shown themselves to be reluctant to engage with physical activity, including of course girls (who are not a minority).

If you read the comments on the on-line petition you will see so many of them are from Asian youngsters who believe that the Foundation (through its coaches) has encouraged and supported them not only to play sport at the highest levels but often to go on to take up professional careers in education and health. One talks proudly of how as a young Muslim PE teacher she feels empowered to be a positive role model for girls in particular. Others speak of the help they got from us in integrating into the UK and the local community.

On the other hand, at the protest rally outside the Town Hall before the Council Meeting a very articulate 10 year-old white, middle class boy who plays cricket at Blackheath told me in great detail how important it was to him that he had had the opportunity to meet and mix with Asian boys of his own age in a sporting (and social) setting.

These things only happened because of our Foundation and its staff. Sadly they may not survive our demise.

Other “programming” languages have been added such as CSS = Cascading Style Sheets, Javascript and my favourite PHP.

This web site uses Wordstar, a software package. The allowed HTML codes are restricted to just a few. If I reproduce them verbatim you will not see the full coding. So I am substituting [ for left angular bracket and ] for right angular bracket. When using the codes obviously use the angular brackets.

Chucking metaphorical rocks creates awareness. Only after awareness, can problems be fixed. Impossible to fix a problem no one knows about.

Lemonadegate

The criminal age of responsibility is 10 but this was the issuing of a civil penalty. I do not know the qualifying age limit.

If the normal people, the Citizens of Tower Hamlets, can unite to form a pressure group supporting children’s sports, I hope the same grouping will encourage some to contest the next local elections on the basis the public can’t do any worse than the current clowns.

On Lemonadegate, the first time I saw it was in the Standard. I was curious (if not feline) because I thought about the age of responsibility.

By the time of the BBC article (which went global), with the same angle of little girl fined, there was actually a print of the fine in the article, with the father’s name on it. LBTH also separately confirmed (after being asked, not by me) that the fine was given to the father. Also in the BBC article was a confirmation the fine had already been rescinded by LBTH.

I found it a bit of a stretch to believe that THEOs read the proverbial riot act to a 5 year old if their parent was stood next to them…but I do not know what happened on the day and it’s not fair to comment.

All I am saying is that the headline, 5 year old fined, was wrong. Once you realise that, the calls for the THEOs to be named and shamed, or blaming this on the Council. Yes it’s their THEO, yes this isn’t a good outcome, yes it has been cancelled.

Is it sensible to have controls over selling food and drink on the street? Yes. Should these be lifted because the vendor brought a kid? No.
Is a fine OTT in this specific instance? Yes.

Likewise, here, I struggle with the headline. Maybe I’m obsessing about nothing but if this was titled “Biggs refuses to step in to save youth sport” I’d find that so much more palatable than “Biggs cuts”.

Why? The reason this matters is because if you find out the source of the actual cut, you find out whether it is coming from central government or local (for example) or some other source.

f you find out the source of the actual cut, you find out whether it is coming from central government or local (for example) or some other source.

Local government has some flexibility how it spends (or wastes) public funds.

Despite the Tories trying to save money, by reducing local government funding, to reward their affluent supporters – and to pay towards the biggest peacetime disaster (suicide) in UK history – massive amounts of public cash are routinely wasted in local government on expensive contractors, IT (never ever getting good value,) tasks that no one benefits from, Labour’s Local Government Association and other parasitic organisations that flourish from public cash distributed by councils – ALACE, SOLACE etc. etc. etc.

Stop the wastage and surplus cash appears. All it needs is a housewife-type mentality not to waste money.

Local government needs to return to its essentials – serving the public and not making private contractors rich. Amazing how 650 MPs haven’t got a clue and they are supposed to be better than clueless local councillors.

Leaders of councils and their Heads of Paid Service (chief executives) very frequently lack the required public commitment, vision, energy and inspiration – hence the mess. All they want is the money, the power and the social status.

Regarding #LemonadeGate yes the papers did misreport it (it even made the Washington Post). Nonetheless it is not on to have FOUR THEOS there, body camera pointed at child; whilst permitting hundreds of Loveboxers to “consume” happy crack largely unchallenged and then drop the canisters on the same street; and allow Coca-cola and Oasis to give out thousands of free samples most of which were dumped half empty on the street.

CC I’m not in politics or the public sector, but yeah, obviously neither works that well; but that said, neither does the private sector. Humans are frequently a bit rubbish unfortunately. All I am saying, which I don’t think is that unreasonable, is I’m interested to understand what has got us to where we are, and at the moment I don’t feel like I understand it enough. What has gone wrong with the schools funding?

[NB it is entirely possible that my reaction comes from many years of disappointment in LBTH politics and being unwilling to trust anything at face value anymore.]

Chris D, sorry I think I missed your response earlier. I made my comment partly because you said “sport in Tower Hamlets will once again be the preserve of the (largely middle class) elite “; and also partly because of Stepney Shaz’s comments about BAME clubs access to facilities (as opposed to…whose?)

That’s not me thinking you are trying to be exclusive, it’s me thinking that it would be good to find ways to get money from Canary Wharf and into the rest of the borough; that sport is a good way to do that; and that being anti those guys we maybe shut ourselves off from that. I think you’re completely right that some people need more encouragement than others, and I agree that sharp elbowed middle class parents will find opportunities for their kids…but that doesn’t mean I can’t harness them, turn their keenness to get the best outcome for their kid into them helping with coaching, or admin, or whatever, and then that helps build platforms for the more deprived kids to access.

I actually personally think the problems pre-date the SSPs. Some of the de-motivation I’ve heard at times both in LBTH and elsewhere goes all the way back to school governors thinking competitive sports are bad way back in the 70s & 80s and so on. These kind of things get embedded over the years and you end up with a disconnect between schools and the wider sporting scene. SSPs were a brilliant way to shake that up. Where I see THYSF at its most impressive is things like rugby, where as I understand it, you’re plugged into an existing club and you’ve made that link.

Where it’s less impressive (which may not be your fault) is where there isn’t that link with the community clubs. Or where the structures we have in place sometimes don’t allow us to access NGB funding (I heard on the grapevine this happened in cricket but obviously nothing I say is fact, just the observations of an interested observer who tries to take the time to listen and learn).

In my view, this shouldn’t be about adults versus kids or deprived versus middle class or whatever. This should be about the unifying positive role that sport could play in our borough. The example of the Blackheath kid you give is highly relevant Chris and I thank you for it. Meeting people who are different from you and playing on the same team is one of the ways we could unite our borough. These “elite middle classes” can, with guidance, be incredible allies and mentors. Look at programmes like Making the Leap (not sport related), or the efforts of the Arsenal foundation.

Whereas suggesting one community is more valid than another, etc. which I think I recall one of the councillors hinting towards, I always struggle with that. Sure, you represent the people who you perceive elected you if you wish, but you should have a greater responsibility to the whole of the borough…and these councillors (and that goes for ALL parties) would sound a lot more grown up if you took that approach more than chucking mud in meetings or on twitter.

I’d be fascinated to look at all clubs, and all schools and look at what they are doing (across adults, kids, disabilities, both sexes), and what strategies they have.

Politics will never be perfect, neither will Hamlets, but we have to find a way to move on from the mistrust of recent years. That’s not me saying I think the Mayor should have carte blanche (heck no), rather its me saying if we had some way of getting clear facts a bit more regularly…oh wait, I think I realise what I’m saying…Ted, start your blog back up, I’ve missed you!

The question is why you hiding behind a fake name? Show yourself, I hear your a pillar of the tower hamlets community!! Don’t be shy man unless it’s an inside job and you are truely an employee or a benefactor of tower hamlets council??

Shaz: “Fundraising officer does not cost £3.8m.” – nobody could think the Council sports team costs £3.8M in staff costs.

Shaz: “Council has lots of officers outside of sport dealing with section 106.” – yes because what s106 can be spent on is wider than sport. But if sport wants some of the money, it is the sport development team that asks.

Shaz: “And yes. More demand for football pitch than supply but where can you build?” – I say more demand for facilities generally, not just football. Here’s a few possible examples of things we could do:

– open up the schools for use by the community. E.g. there is a pitch at St Paul’s Way, which the governors/trustees are blocking from external use.
– an all weather rugby pitch into Millwall Park. Would primarily benefit Millwall RC, but would also help other sports, e.g. could be used by archery.
– a second sand dressed pitch into Mile End Park, for use of hockey & football.
– an indoor hockey pitch into the sports hall at John Orwell
– additional facilities at Whitechapel as part of the Crossrail project
– a pitch into King Edward Memorial Park (KEMP) – why didn’t we get Thames Water to put a sport facility in there as part of the compensation for their works – it could have replaced the existing carpark/pitch?
– a cricket pitch into Victoria Park, potentially combined with track and field.
– put pitches on top of school and public buildings as part of the design specification – this is what they do in other heavily urban areas, such as New York.

I’m sure there’s other things, but it’s just a few thoughts. And of course there’s the existing programmes that have improved facilities that were already there.

Shaz: “You say fund instead of thysf but thysf take kids to facility out of TH or get access to school site or use estate pitch.” No, I never said that. You suggested facilities were important because of lack of access, and I suggested that might be something that is currently coming from that budget.

Shaz: “You say £3.8m on administrator is good but is not good when zero for frontline.” – I find it highly unlikely £3.8M is a staff cost. There’s what, 24 staff? You think a LBTH sports officer gets paid >£150K? I haven’t seen the accounts, but the size of those numbers makes me think it must be facilities.

Shaz: “Many kids in TH do nothing, bad health, gangs etc. Football clubs do good work with kids but which other club?” – on this first part we agree. And it is vital we find a way to support and encourage that (and THYSF is one way to do that). On the second, there are others outside football. BMX is one that springs to mind.

Now the telling point here is perhaps this. Everyone, including me, recognises THYSF have done a tremendous amount for the community. I’ve already said that several times above. But in not getting immediately angry and blame John Biggs, and asking a few more questions, I’m now seen as potentially thinking the status quo is good, or having people trying to guess who I am (like that is relevant or appropriate for what could be a sensible Chatham House rules discussion). Why? Can’t we have a sensible conversation about how to improve outcomes for sport without trying to make it a partisan fight?

Moving on to Ted’s question and the issue of facilities access.

Shaz is right in that GLL will tend to respect existing bookings unless there is a good reason to move them. Some of these are corporate bookings (although some residents do work for local businesses). Some of these are commercial, e.g. there’s more than one organisation that runs a football league (including for teams out of borough), there’s a tag rugby league, and so on. Some are clubs, and some are ad hoc.

I’m not sure that I agree this is giving facilities to your mates, and more that if you are going to build a league or a club, particularly of a higher standard, you need some certainty of tenure. I mean, I wouldn’t expect to kick Sporting Bengal off Mile End Stadium so I can have a kick about with my mates, that’s just silly. It is an imperfect system, but there is a logic to it most of the time.

Where it is a corporate booking, it is worth looking at more. But if you don’t come at that in an aggressive fashion, that could even be turned into a positive. E.g. let’s say a corporate booker always has I dunno, 7pm at Stepney Green and they pay for it. That’s one team, and they need opponents.

Now you could leave them alone (current strategy) or you could kick them off and say no, it is just for locals, and the locals would have to find the money to book the pitch and be as reliable about booking it as the corporate.

Or a third way…couldn’t we make it a requirement that they played against residents sides sometimes? If the corporate is then paying for that pitch booking, you’ve just in effect found corporate sponsorship for a game for residents. And you have cheaper sports delivery.

This is the type of thinking outside the box we should be doing.

Same thought process applies to THYSF. I think we should look at everything and how do we ensure we get decent outcomes for kids and for sports. We should look at who doesn’t currently work together and why. That would be more productive than thinking it is “you’re with me or against me”.

And NONE of that is intended to poke holes in the quite legitimate frustration Chris Dunne has, or in the achievements of THYSF to date. It is simply having an open mind.

A corporate booking in borough may increase affinity between the corporate and the borough. This increase both sport and non-sport outcomes, e.g. volunteering in the borough, or partnering with local charities through ELBA, or indeed supporting THYSF. Corporate = bad / non-resident is a little simplistic.

Not agreeing with each other immediately also doesn’t mean thinking the direct opposite. E.g. saying some of the £3.8M may well be spent on facilities, which are for everyone’s use, including kids, is hardly “You say £3.8m on administrator is good but is not good when zero for frontline.”

Let’s try and be more open / honest & less suspicious. If I take all my long ramblings down to two questions:

1 what has happened to the school’s funding to cause THYSF to need extra support (which they are currently looking for from LBTH)?
2 is there anyone other than LBTH that could help THYSF?
3 would THYSF be willing to change the shape of its delivery to secure 2?

Joined up thinking by council sport development managers on huge money maybe? These staff arent knew. Been in TH well over 10 years and achieved nothing. Politicians ignore them because they dont ustand sport and there is no sport strategy to judge against.
Community props up all sport in TH like mayors cup and council sports officers send out expensive flyers etc which take credit.
Rugby pitch, hockey pitch, cricket pitch. Local kids only play these sport because of thydf project so why build new facility when no one gonna use them.
Gll and council have no way of sharing facilitys. No way to know how many kids, how many female, how many BME, which area from etc. Just first come first serve. Or if friendly with sports officers can get booking. Sometimes cheaper rate to.

Shaz: “Rugby pitch, hockey pitch, cricket pitch. Local kids only play these sport because of thydf project so why build new facility when no one gonna use them.”

Simply incorrect.

Rugby: there was an existing adult club (Millwall RC) which THYSF worked with and their rugby development officer took a role with as head of the youth section. This is a shared THYSF / club delivery and is a good thing. So this club already exists, but it could benefit from an all weather pitch rather than grass.

Hockey: the first meaningful youth hockey delivery in LBTH was Wapping HC (founded after GB Gold in 1988) in partnership with Daneford as was (late 80s / early 90s) which took a predominantly Bengali team to success at the national championships. This was shut down by the then wife of Ken Livingstone who was on the board of governors. Then nothing much, then THYSF. Martin Foxall particularly significant, and because of his role as a coach at Southgate, kids leave borough to go to Southgate HC (v similar to Blackheath with cricket).

However, in the last few years, both Wapping HC and East London HC have created youth sections (not currently working with THYSF) as a direct consequence of facilities investment (e.g. in 2013 the then Mayor wanted to turn the John Orwell into a swimming pool, it was condemned for league hockey and was not somewhere you could deliver the kids game. After Wapping helped secure money, this has been refurbished, and there is now youth delivery there. THYSF doesn’t work with either so far as I know, and some of its staff have, in other contexts, had friction with Wapping over this youth delivery. Hockey has experienced phenomenal growth since 2012, as has been covered in the East London Advertiser – in part because it is one of the few sports where men and women are about equal participation.

Cricket: the reason there is no cricket club in the borough is that there is no cricket pitch. If we had a cricket pitch, we could create a cricket club, and that would, over time, become an in borough solution rather than kids being shipped out to Blackheath (cf. with hockey).

Good to hear Andrew, I wasn’t aware of that. As Chris rightly says, it is not just about facilities, but they are important.

The link to coaching and potential trade offs is plain. For example:

Usually someone in the borough wants something (e.g. club wants facilities; or wants to create funded positions as part of what’s needed at semi-pro level); and you exchange that for what you need (e.g. if we improve facilities can you improve youth and disability delivery; if we part contribute towards funding that player can they do some schools delivery).

Alternatively, the borough might want something (e.g. we would like greater BAME participation in sport x or club y) and then might incentivise by saying to potential partners “we will help you”, e.g. by THYSF or whomever routing those kids to you, can you help coach this, and if it puts a strain on facilities, we will help build more as needed. That can help reduce the load / expense of THYSF as then they (or schools direct, or LBTH) have a delivery partner rather than needing to do everything themselves. That requires both sides to be willing to work together of course.

It’s wrong to think of club x as a BAME club or club y as a white club, or club a is mostly men and club b is mostly women, or club 1 is for rich people and club 2 is for poor – frankly no club’s constitution should be built on race, sex, or class grounds. The only thing there should be, is the present membership – and that can always change. It should be about ensuring fair access to all these clubs. Often that access is far wider than it is perceived to be in the community (because people talk smack about each other, sadly, and fact checking is rare), but that needs to translate into uptake.

Doing all that transparently gives you an opportunity for legitimate delivery, and moves away from what can be seen as buying votes, or as an opportunity for partisan points scoring.

NB although I agree coaches are key, I’d also note that often new delivery stagnates when facilities are at capacity.

Burnside – I think you need to get your facts right about youth hockey in tower hamlets. The youth of tower hamlets were national champions in 1989, 1991 and 1994 10 players went on to represent England because of Martin Foxall and fred whitehead. It had nothing to do with wapping hc. Furthermore ms chapman, as the head continued her support for hockey which resulted in them becoming national U-14 champions in 1996 as Bethnal Green Tech. Again nothing to do with wapping hc. As wapping hc was not club to push these kids on they went with Martin Foxall to old loughts who were one the top clubs in the country to further their hockey career. If Wapping hc as you say are the light of hockey in tower hamlets why has it take 28 years to do so? And secondly how may kids are from the BAME community? I’ll tell you, Zero!

Let me come in here. I missed blogging because some of these ‘dull but very worthy’ issues weren’t being highlighted enough.

I think this forum can be a way for them to be discussed intelligently and constructively.

Chris Dunne approached me to ask whether I could raise the issue. I asked him if he could write a piece. I thought what he wrote was excellent.

I’m glad it’s got people talking. I don’t think he or anyone else has a monopoly on ‘truth’: these things are often about people who are passionate about the issue arguing their points.

I think ‘Sigh’ has done that and there remain unanswered questions that have been raised.

What I didn’t miss about blogging was the kind of low level insults and point scoring that is now coming through on this thread.

I think ‘Real Hamlet’ (whoever they are — they haven’t identified themselves to me unlike others in this debate) is cheapening a valid issue. I suspect he or she does have a passionately held view but please let’s stick to the issue.

I wrote in the preface to Chris’s piece that sport was a key driver of bringing youth communities together in Tower Hamlets.

Let’s have some constructive dialogue without the nasty sniping, eh.

Real Hamlet: you are very welcome to get in touch with me and write a secondary piece for this blog if you’d like.

Sorry, missed this one (it’s tough when there’s that many posts at once having a go). But happy to address it.

My understanding was that the brand new club (at the time) Wapping HC did quite a lot of work initially with Daneford, and that Tim Poeton (founding chair) and others did quite a lot to support Daneford’s teaching staff in their efforts with these kids, e.g. driving round in minibuses and so on picking people up from their homes – actually, the stories I’ve been told echo with the stories Chris tells above of Chris Willetts efforts. I guess the targeted approach hasn’t changed much over the years.

I agree with you in part, my understanding was that as a new club, Wapping weren’t in a position to push the players (because they were in the bottom league, etc.) these players then progressed to a much more established local club – with the blessing of the then Chair of Wapping, namely Old Loughts. Maybe the same will happen with Tower Hamlets HC and Wapping / East London – there’s a fairly obvious parallel.

Now as I said, this is just what I’ve been told. I’m happy to go check this with Martin. I’m sure you can do the same.

But as for the rest of your post, I don’t see anything I’ve written about Wapping being the light of hockey in Tower Hamlets. Actually, very few of my posts have been about hockey or Wapping, other than acknowledging the fundamental role Wapping played in the delivery of John Orwell Sports Centre’s refurbishment.

Now, I can’t really speak for why in subsequent years the youth engagement from WHC dropped off, other than that programme folded due to the school pulling support – must be awful to have schools pull support – the guys at the time probably felt as pissed off as THYSF guys do currently, and thought sod you. A real shame – LBTH could and should have been a Hockey Olympian factory. I hope we will get there soon – hopefully people will learn how to work together to achieve that.

It is fairly obvious Wapping will be investing more into their youth set up – would be probably fairly sensible for people who care about youth sport in the borough to work together – maybe there’s a fix in at least one sport for THYSF’s woes…

That’ll probably need people who look like THYSF to refrain from slagging off people they think are Wapping personnel on public forums first though, eh? Lol

I said it was easy for the demographic make up of a club’s membership to change.

That is only true where there is adequate facilities access and adequate coaching.

If a club has maxed out its membership due to lack of facilities or coaching, and no one is leaving the club due to e.g. leaving the area…then demographics obviously stagnate as it would be completely inappropriate to kick out members.

Then those denied access potentially form a separate group, unable to access that club, who think the club is to blame and who lobby for access to the facilities instead of the club.

The fix isn’t to chuck rocks at the club, who may well be delivering great outcomes for its membership. It’s to ask the club why it isn’t taking the people who can’t access it, and then help it adjust that, e.g. through greater facilities provision (which might be as fundamental as pitch space, but might be softer, e.g. step free access and appropriate shelter / indoor space to allow a disability focus), or support for coach training, or whatever it is.

Growing clubs with space to grow tend to be open to everyone (which in turn explains why they are growing), and tend to be willing to work with each other.

Burnside – it’s called targeted approach to increase the participation to reflect the demographic of the community. You have a lot to say, as a pillar of the community have you done anything in your capacity to help engage the BAME members of tower hamlets either at youth or adults. HINT – it’s hard to engage with the real community of tower hamlets when your sitting in the tall buildings of Canary Wharf. Lol

Burnside – I think you should go back to your founding member and get your understanding right. It takes at least 4 years to build a national champion side. Daneford won it as U-16 side in December 1989. Wapping Hockey club est in sept 1989. How in the hell do you think wapping hc would of helped that side?? As far as running around picking kids up? Wishful thinking and clutching at straws come to mind. It was done by Fred whitehead. Please stop talking about stuff you don’t have the full facts!!

I see you conveniently missed out how you were inaccurate about ken livingstone’s wife. Lol

I intend to fact check. You should do the same. For a start, on when Wapping HC was established as opposed to when it entered the league (a common mistake).

As for Ken Livingstone’s wife, I was told governor. If she was head, ok – in fact that makes more sense about being a position to shut something down. Did she shut it down or didn’t she, that’s the only bit that matters.

You know – if we’re still talking about what matters, and not just trying to point score.

As for wishful thinking – it had nothing to do with me, so it’s just my understanding of a bit of borough history. You seem to really, really care though, not sure why.

Finally – notice that you have talked more about hockey and Wapping than I have. Are you sure you’re not Burnside yourself playing some kind of double bluff?

Anyway…this is utterly, utterly, irrelevant to the article. So shall we get back off this ad hominem tangent and talk about how we can help ensure the borough kids get access to sport? Do you have some ideas?

Anyway…this is utterly, utterly, irrelevant to the article. So shall we get back off this ad hominem tangent and talk about how we can help ensure the borough kids get access to sport? Do you have some ideas?

My feels precisely.

This is supposed to be about helping the kids.

Adults slagging people off achieves nothing beneficial for the kids whatsoever.

So lets all work constructively and pleasantly for the welfare of tomorrow’s adults.

I wish I was the real burnside then I would remove myself from this borough so I don’t block kids having a fairer acccess to sport not just the rich ones. At the same time I would stop photo bombing sporting personalities and pretend their my friends or even know them. Furthermore I would stop marketing myself as Mr Know It All.

The real hamlet said:
“The question is why you hiding behind a fake name? Show yourself, I hear your a pillar of the tower hamlets community!! Don’t be shy man unless it’s an inside job and you are truely an employee or a benefactor of tower hamlets council??”

There’s a fairly obvious irony that you are posting this from an account with a nom de plume on it, just like me, and just like many of the commentators here…

I am very happy to explain to you the basics of internet etiquette.

If you are a representative of a specific group, or identifiable as such, then, if you post in your own name (like Councillor Wood, or Chris Dunne for example), you are posting the opinions of that group.

If you are posting in a personal capacity, then, as long as you aren’t trying to gain advantage for your group through skullduggery, it is actually pretty normal practice to do that under a nom de plume. As long as you are registering for the comments with an identifiable email account, i.e. so Ted knows who you are, then there’s really nothing wrong with it. It allows for a more open dialogue.

I don’t need to know who you are, but I would hope you’ve identified yourself to Ted.

Now, let’s have a look at your next post:

“it’s called targeted approach to increase the participation to reflect the demographic of the community.”

I know what a targeted approach is, and I have already acknowledged the benefits of that from speaking, politely, to Chris Dunne above. Shall we assume from this that you are connected with THYSF, and perhaps work for them? It certainly looks that way. Do you think your post encourages the un-connected reader to help THYSF, or do you think it makes the foundation look bad?

“You have a lot to say” yes, I do, I’m a borough resident of some years, and, as most people reading what I have written would be able to glean, I am reasonably familiar with the sporting landscape (wider than just LBTH).

“as a pillar of the community” I wouldn’t self-identify as this.

“have you done anything in your capacity” I am not posting in my own name or on behalf of a specific group, so I have no capacity.

So what is the point of this?

That becomes obvious with:

“to help engage the BAME members of tower hamlets either at youth or adults.” – dog whistle racism – you think I am a member of a particular community and therefore with this dog whistle you encourage other readers that my views should be disregarded. This is communitarian politics and quite low quality “old Tower Hamlets” behaviour – grow up.

and

“HINT – it’s hard to engage with the real community of tower hamlets when your sitting in the tall buildings of Canary Wharf. Lol”

you think I am a member of a particular class and my views should be disregarded. As it happens, I don’t work or live in Canary Wharf.

So, what have you added to the discussion across three posts now? A low quality personal attack on the person you think I am. Any ideas from you about how to save youth sport in Tower Hamlets? Not so far. Want to try again?

There is a lot of detail in my posts above. You’ve ignored that. Do you feel threatened by someone willing to engage with the problems facing youth sport in Tower Hamlets in this level of detail?

Ever thought about being constructive and working with other people in the community?

Ouch looks like I’ve touched a nerve…. keep going burnside your doing well man. LoL. I’ll leave you with this thought. I have lived in this borough far longer than you have, I know the sporting landscape better then you ever will. Tower Hamlets is a gold mine of exceptionally talented youth which needs to be tapped further. Ask the question how can you help engage All of the youth not just the well off. Peace wanna be hockey oracle.

PS just for your own sanity I do not work for THYSF. Just know you like to talk a good game and have been known to speak without knowing the full facts especially about hockey. Sleep well burnside. 🤣

Funny thing is…this all started with me asking for some facts. The short version again:

1 what has happened to the school’s funding to cause THYSF to need extra support (which they are currently looking for from LBTH)?
2 is there anyone other than LBTH that could help THYSF?
3 would THYSF be willing to change the shape of its delivery to secure 2?

Not had any answers yet. Actually, to be fair, got some answers about facilities from Cllr Wood, and I guess the insight into what some folk believe about the borough was interesting too, so wasn’t a complete waste of time. But…there are probably some other good ideas people in this discussion that care about the topic could generate.

Shall we take a break from insults and try and work with each other to do that?

Burnside – by all means ask away (hiding behind pseudonym of sigh hamlet) as I can’t help you answer them. In this forum your trying to come across as the man of the community and speak with credibility/care for the youth of tower hamlets. Im just trying to give an insight to what kind of a man you are to the rest of the people in this forum as those who know you will know the following facts below:

A) Beacuse of people like you in the borough involved in sport occupying position of influence, vast majority of the under previlaged both youth and adults especially from the BAME group have been missed out.

B) Facts presented about hockey and the great work Wapping HC are doing and have done in the past with the youth are totally inaccurate as most of it from a secondary source which you haven’t verified.

C) You are about promoting yourself and are very articulate in talking around factual points to support your cause.

You represent a group of people in the borough as your work continued to maintain suppport this particular group. This is very evident as your work in the community has failed the people stated in point A. If what I am saying is not true then please ask youself since 2004 the time you have been in the borough, how have you engaged adults/youth from across all backgrounds? You haven’t! So please don’t come on here and pretend to care or take the moral high ground. I and others know who you are and what you stand for. Please don’t take this as an attack on you it’s just a factual reflection of you that you’re not aware of yet.

Unfortunately now we can see what happens when great articles are hijacked by squabbling key board warriors. Interesting that a debate about cuts to a service that delivers much more than one sport has been broken down into individual sports and seems to be a hockey argument. This is precisely why I would suspect that THYSF treads carefully into relationships with adult clubs. If we look past the promotion of Wapping Hockey Club (which is totally unacceptable to plug your own endeavours when we are trying to save a service) , to real issues about why are elected politicians voting against keeping this service which ultimately has a huge impact on the children of our borough. The fact the council wants to take away existing district programmes and leadership courses surely as seen by the squabble above these are important things for community cohesion bringing together children from different backgrounds, schools clubs to compete together. Youth Crime is on the rise- why are we cutting a service that delivers leadership programmes to young people and helps them to improve chances of getting a job and mentor other young people.

I agree, that would be totally unacceptable. Which is why it didn’t happen.

Were you to read the thread carefully, you would see that there is minimal mention of hockey or Wapping prior to “real” Hamlets starting with a slew of ad hominem. Right of reply is reasonable in that context, if distracting. But I agree, it’s desperately off topic, and boring.

So, let’s move on from the ad hominem, and maybe let’s also not talk about hockey for a bit. Let’s try and act like the grown ups we are supposed to be, not ignore the issue so we can attack each other’s credibility and…

Let’s talk about the kids.

We have an existing programme run by THYSF, which everyone here agrees is excellent (I’ve said so several times).

That has a funding shortfall, which appears to be linked to some cuts in school funding. I’ve asked for further details on this as I don’t like sounding off without facts.

The Council has been asked to step in, and hasn’t.

Where do we go from here?

We can continue to pressure the Council to step in. I’m sure that will continue. I see a lot of effort going on that.

But…what if they still don’t? Isn’t that a cliff edge? Won’t the kids suffer?

So…what can we do to help kids sport if the Council don’t step in? Who else can help THYSF? If we are going to have a proper conversation about that, we need to know what has gone wrong, and what is still possible.

Will LBTH schools pay anything towards a specialist youth coach providing in school services? Will they pay anything towards their kids participation in the London Youth Games (our version of the School Games)? Is the central funding, for School Games Organisers, etc. still in place?

Thank you for your reply I am sure all readers would like a break from Hockey chat. It is clear that the sport has its own issues in the borough which should be kept elsewhere.

From research that I have done schools benefit greatly from the work of THYSF I am sure you know this but they are much more than coaches hence their labels of development officers. With out talking about specific sports for the sake of promoting another off topic debate. These development officers run sessions within class time and afterschool as well as district squads. Children see the same familiar face at all these stages which we know can be crucial when children progress in sport talking away a bit of the fear of moving up age groups and level. The development officers have specialisms in their own sports and many have/continue to play at a high level or coach at a high level within their own sports.

I know I might be rambling on but why would anyone want to have this service fall away. Schools would be at loss with these development officers being replaced by a coach who is just there for a session not thinking about pathways or signposting opportunities. Do you think the council has even considered this. THYSF is much more than a coaching company.

What has gone wrong you ask, if I was to guess school budgets are increasingly being cut. We all know pe/sport is the go to thing to be cut in schools as it’s not measured as such by exam results.

“Thank you for your reply I am sure all readers would like a break from Hockey chat. It is clear that the sport has its own issues in the borough which should be kept elsewhere.”

Agree, sadly. NB there’s actually 33 sports in my remit, not that you’d guess it from the above (!) but I’m deliberately writing off record.

“From research that I have done schools benefit greatly from the work of THYSF I am sure you know this but they are much more than coaches hence their labels of development officers. With out talking about specific sports for the sake of promoting another off topic debate. These development officers run sessions within class time and afterschool as well as district squads. Children see the same familiar face at all these stages which we know can be crucial when children progress in sport talking away a bit of the fear of moving up age groups and level. The development officers have specialisms in their own sports and many have/continue to play at a high level or coach at a high level within their own sports.”

Very much agree, and sorry, I wasn’t trying to imply anything by saying coach rather than development officer.

“I know I might be rambling on but why would anyone want to have this service fall away.”

No one. I am sick of austerity. I do understand why decisions sometimes get made that I wouldn’t personally make (and I’m not in government – and given the brickbats that fly about even just talking on comments here, I’m glad I’m not).

“Schools would be at loss with these development officers being replaced by a coach who is just there for a session not thinking about pathways or signposting opportunities. Do you think the council has even considered this. THYSF is much more than a coaching company.”

Again, apologies, I used the wrong term above.

“What has gone wrong you ask, if I was to guess school budgets are increasingly being cut. We all know pe/sport is the go to thing to be cut in schools as it’s not measured as such by exam results.”

Yeah, I think you may be right, and that’s a shame. I have zero ability to change the Council’s mind, or the mind of the schools involved. But I do feel strongly about this problem and think it worth talking through.

Where I was going with this was let’s look at a development officer in sport x (and let’s not, for the love of Hamlets, pick a sport ;-))

The first issue, which Chris Dunne has done a lot to highlight, is they need to be payrolled by someone.

The second, which can sometimes help solve the first, is funding. I am less familiar with how this than some other people, which is why I was asking questions before proposing solutions. As I see it, each development officer could be funded by a combination of some of the following:

Private payment for services
– local clubs – especially where semi-pro – clubs in turn can then help access other private donations and sponsors indirectly
– private schools – not immediately obvious given the targeted outcomes we all want, but private schools are often under pressure to justify their own existence

Going back to the pay-rolling point, much as it wouldn’t sit with some folks politics, have a look at some other boroughs. There, you have semi-pro clubs benefitting from private schools that can afford to payroll expensive coaches (e.g. international players and so on). This is just one idea, but couldn’t we look at private schools (and obviously, this may mean going out of borough, e.g. what do City of London do, what do Forest do), and see if they would be interested in taking someone onto their payroll for a reduced price. Then that school can boast of its outreach work and is a good social citizen able to justify its existence?

That private school might be getting say 2 days a week off them, and then 3 days a week is the development officer work, part paid by LBTH schools, clubs and maybe sponsors (e.g. would we be willing to brand it up so it was the [Company A][Sport X] Development Officer? Not ideal, and we’d need to think carefully about who Company A was, but this is the stuff we should be thinking about.

That is just one idea. I’m sure there’s loads more. That’s what I was hoping we could talk about.

Some good funding ideas. I like your idea concerning schools taking on specialist coaches however this would only in my opinion be applicable to a Secondary school model. From my understanding the majority of schools THYSF works with are primary schools. I ask you why would I want a specialist coach in a primary school. Surely you would want a range of specialists delivering multiple sports and if a child wants to specialise then there is a direct pathway with that coach. If they did 2 days at a secondary and 3 days at all other schools I would say that it wouldn’t be beneficial.

It is back to the debate of whether a school should concentrate on a single sport beyond curriculum PE. I would say this would detrimental to pupils as you will know as you say you are involved with multiple sports that you could easily lose out on discovering talent in other sports.

I would ask the council how they would expect to run all these 70 or so competitions. We want our children to have opportunities in a variety of sports.

Corporate sponsorship for individual coaches would be a good idea I agree with that.

No worries Poplar, I follow your logic. I guess if we had the development officer payrolled in e.g. private secondary school, they could still go into primary as part of the DO function. I agree working with primary is vital. And I’m not wedded on 2 in one role 3 on the other, it was just a straw man about other ways we can approach this.

As for Real Hamlets latest post – the only thing that is relevant to this article is our youth sports service going off a cliff and how we fix that. The credibility of individuals involved is actually irrelevant for this purpose – what matters right now is ideas. So, grow up and stop the ad hominem rubbish. Everyone reading this has seen you have personal animosity towards the person you think I am, and that you think them not credible on this topic. Point made…point actually irrelevant. So, I have nothing further to say to you until you start talking about how we save youth sport provision – i.e. the article you are commenting under.

Oh & I should say also – the benefit of multiple sports Poplar? YES. You are absolutely right.

Going briefly sport specific (I will risk it) if we look at female weightlifting that gives us some examples.

Zoe Smith (CWG Gold) started out as a gymnast. Reason for trying weightlifting? Her borough wanted to enter a London Youth Games team.

I know Mercy Brown less well, so I don’t know how she got started (website says practical grade in PE), but that’s someone from LBTH now doing great things in a field that you wouldn’t immediately think of to put a specialist coach in. Wins Balfour Beatty Breakthrough Award and the London Youth Games and is now a GB lifter.

And that’s just the people doing great things in elite sport. That’s before you add the social impact that others have mentioned.

It’s so important. I’ve had nothing to do with those things happening – most people writing and reading this haven’t. Doesn’t mean we can’t care about them. In the same way as we can care about, I dunno, what happens to refugees and the homeless, without personally running a homeless hostel from our living rooms.

It is good that you have mentioned that sport specifically and mentioned London Youth Games. So THYSF have had in recent years a Weightlifting development officer I still think there is currently one based on success of weightlifting in the borough. I was informed that they even started up a weightlifting club on the back of the success that the development officer had and the club seems to be doing very well and there is a strong pathway from grassroots to elite headed up by the same person.

It was mentioned by Chris Dunne that the council wasn’t paying for London Youth Games!?! That is absurd considering how effective it is at producing talent as you have identified and again exposing young people to new sports. As the borough had now reached the dizzy heights of a top 10 finish surely the council would be jumping at the chance to work with the foundation and continue this success at LYG.

It is good that you have mentioned that sport specifically and mentioned London Youth Games. So THYSF have had in recent years a Weightlifting development officer I still think there is currently one based on success of weightlifting in the borough. I was informed that they even started up a weightlifting club on the back of the success that the development officer had and the club seems to be doing very well and there is a strong pathway from grassroots to elite headed up by the same person.

It was mentioned by Chris Dunne that the council wasn’t paying for London Youth Games!?! That is absurd considering how effective it is at producing talent as you have identified and again exposing young people to new sports. As the borough had now reached the dizzy heights of a top 10 finish surely the council would be jumping at the chance to work with the foundation and continue this success at LYG.

Interesting, I didn’t know that about the weightlifting officer. That is brilliant, and I guess in part explains the success!

I didn’t know the Council wasn’t paying for London Youth Games until Chris said it. IThe different boroughs have a range of different ways that they approach the Games, and a range of different levels of engagement. I’m pretty sure they don’t all have the same funding model, and I know some access funding from sources other than just e.g. Council tax. But of course I see the value, and I usually try and get to Palace on finals weekend (and have as a result seen a number of the THYSF coached teams in action). I hope whatever happens to THYSF, we find a way to still have LBTH teams in the Games.

Anyone you speak to at international level who has grown up in London pretty much has done the Games. I’ve spoken with a few (no, they aren’t my friends, yes, I did sometimes take a picture, because, um, wouldn’t you, if you’re a sports fan?), and a common theme seems to be the importance of the Finals in their memory as their first experience of a large scale multi-sport event. It’s a junior Olympics, for our City.

And…actually, like much of competitive sport, it has a benefit beyond high performance – appropriate competition at the right level for you is such a great source of development. Even something as simple as learning how to cope with loss / defeat can help you as an adult, whether that’s reacting appropriately when you don’t get your own way, or handling it when a relative dies. And teamwork. And mixing with people that aren’t the same as you. And not sitting around doing nitrous oxide or spraying acid on people. It’s massive.

Sport is hugely important, and the progress Tower Hamlets has made is great. That’s why I am so interested in this topic.

A final, positive thought, directed back to the Real Hamlet: you’ve posted 10 times about the same guy, and your perceptions of his attitude. I don’t think you actually know him that well though, however strong your perception is. So…why not send him an email / give him a call, and see if he is willing to work with you to help improve outcomes for LBTH youth; or BAME access to clubs? As long as you approach that conversation with an open mind and say something more constructive than “why don’t you leave our borough”…who knows, maybe you’ll get a pleasant surprise, and maybe something good will happen…and LBTH will benefit in some small way from this initial unpleasantness.

While i think many people are getting too hysterical over the main topic.I must agree with many of the other posts on Biggs.
He and fellow Councillors are patently out of their depths.The absolute waste of our council tax perpetrated by them is the real reason.TH is still a joke, but is anyone surprised?It was Biggs, Peck,Jones etc and all the usual Labour suspects who when in control of past councils treated residents with such contempt and still do…happy to wasye our hard earned cash./This sowed the seeds for the rise of the odious Rahman.The Mayor has wasted no time in slapping successive 5% tax increases on us just to fund more waste.What about the budgeting for three years wheeze? In plain speak this means we are making it up as we go along you mugs.
Previous Labour rule showed Biggs, Peck and Jones always advocated fleecing residents with higher council tax, rates etc.He could not to increase his salary and allowances to Councillors. Big money for what is only a few hours work per week.
During his tenure he has done zero for the lower paid residents struggling.Look at his appalling record…. more cash for Rich Mix which enjoys the patronage of so many Labour luvvies..Bringing the Mela back under council control.So we bear the full cost,while local businessmen line their pockets,while contributing nothing.By the way Mr Mayor publish the full cost of this day …staffs overtime,expenses etc.

The pre election promise to abolish East End Life.Dragged his feet as long as he could, when finally pushed comes up with Our End. So keeping all the staff on, journalists on pay higher than NUJ national rates,advertising staff just sitting around all day to produce this dross four times a year.What a waste.Every dept. could be pared down without any effect on services.

Parks, Rangers just sitting around doing nothing.Likewise Idea Stores, libraries one stop shops and so on. Don’t start me on the Street Line team.He blatantly claims he has cut staff and is more efficient all untruths.But then Biggs definition of efficiency is just to employ ever increasing staff.

Lets give a mention to those good old THEOs. How long is this farce going to continue?They just strut about the borough,first sign of real criminality they scarper and hide. Harassing people over lemonade stands is their forte.They conveniently daily with the market inspectors let the street traders take utter liberties, especially with residents safety.Exceeding the pitch size,goods all over the ground,throwing their rubbish anywhere and blocking off all the side streets with their vans, thus not only hampering residents entry, but also should it be needed the emergency services.The street trading laws are flouted daily and as i said allowed to get away with it.
The biggest betrayal however is after promising to axe it, he lets Tower Hamlets Homes continue to go on wasting vast amounts of money.Despite two thirds of the councils housing stock transferring to over Social Landlords pre THHs.The waste,ineptness, incompetence of this organisation is staggering and one must question Biggs motive for letting it strive.
The biggest scandal here is the caretaking dept.A whole work force employed to do nothing all day.All due to previous CEO Gavin Cansfield decision to hire ever increasing numbers of them.They were not needed then, they are not needed now.They just sit around in their base office most of the day before departing for home early afternoon.In fact it is one long,long lunch break.All this overseen by umpteen managers and supervisors.That the Mayor and Susmita Sen is letting this continue is a disgrace and shameful waste of public money.Rahman and his Housing chair Rabina Khan were continually informed of his by angry tenants,likewise Biggs andSirajul Islam all to no avail, could not care less.Tenants and leaseholders/service charge payers are clearly being taken for a ride.Rents could easily be reduced if all this waste was stopped.I have not even mentioned estate officers slumbering all day,procurement … equipment brought used once or twice then discarded. Susmita Sen is just happy to go on coasting picking up her £118,ooo per year, like CEO Will Tuckley, keep that six figure salary coming.Biggs got many votes from TTHs residents believing he was going to scrap it,i think this betrayal and the fact this waste caretakers etc is rubbed in their noses daily will lose him the election.

I can agree with this about Tower Hamlets Homes and would add to the list of waste their expensive and poorly performing Resident Engagement Team that costs residents over £1m that could be better spent on say, Youth Sport in the borough to help reduce crime and ASB that both LBTH and THH have lost control of. Also, the chief executive Susmita Sen, was recruited in 2015 following a job advertised at a 3 year fixed term contract with an annual salary of “circa £130,000”. With increases over the last 2 years she would now be earning about the same as Government Cabinet Minister and nearly the same as the Prime Minister.

It is totally unfair that nincompoops, once elected, can preside over a catastrophic wasteful disaster the paying public have no influence over and no ability to halt.

The government’s attitude is always “It is Local Democracy”. True democracy allows the public to kick-out the crap and to start afresh.

MPs depend on local party activists to champaign for them. They will not upset local politicians for fear of loosing their general election workers. That is why governments of all colours ignore the often dreadful state of failing local government.

Can Tower Hamlets have a referendum or some other official means of getting a council debate of No Confidence in the Biggs Administration ?
Otherwise the current crap will continue and worsen to the detriment of the public the local politicians were elected to serve.

Tower Hamlets Homes is one of the most undemocratic organisations ever invented. Residents were not asked whether they wanted it or not, it was forced onto residents by the Council in retaliation for them not voting for stock transfer to another Landlord and against external, independent advice that THH was not the answer.

Tremendously interesting, thank you. I know nothing about these topics so won’t comment…on the governance point, a thought:

People who get elected are people who are members of political parties and go through that process. So it’s often someone who wants to do it from that pool (maybe with the packing of meetings mentioned above – I dunno). There may well be robust discussions within parties, but often by the time we see anything, it’s whipped, and everyone is voting the same way, which adds frustration.

It seems very hard to fix party politics & it’s probably for the parties to fix.

However on Council governance:

Would it be useful to take a lesson from the charity sector and have an ability to appoint independent trustees (i.e. not elected, not party political, but skilled in a relevant area), who have the role to provide some critical thought into the Council’s decision making process?

That would mean you could ask a wider talent pool than just members of political parties.

You could even have one of them tasked with asking the questions raised in comments on Ted’s blog (said not entirely tongue in cheek).

[…] put his side of the argument on the youth sport funding row. It follows two previous guest posts (here and here) by Chris Dunne of the Tower Hamlets Youth Sports Foundation whose future is under threat […]

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